Tuesday, 16 May 2017

The building on the corner of Patrick Street and Ellen Street was inspired by the vision of Victorian visits to Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

Early one morning last week, in the middle of commercial Limerick and just a few steps from the River Shannon and the Abbey River, I came across a surprising taste of Venice on the corner of Patrick Street and Ellen Street.

No 9-11 Patrick Street stands on the corner of Ellen Street, two streets that are said to have been named after members of the Arthur family, once one of the leading merchant families in 19th century Limerick.

The building has been redeveloped in recent decades, so that the original large shop premises at the street level has been subdivided into multiple units, while the upper stories have been gutted and subdivided into apartments.

But this former 19th century commercial building still exudes its former Victorian grandeur. Although I have not yet identified the architect, this building was inspired by the palazzi of Venice, and – despite recent alterations – its Italianate style is still impressive, and it continues to reflect a style that was inspired by Victorian visitors to the Veneto.

This colourful and engaging building, standing on a prominent corner site, is a terraced, seven-bay, three-storey, former commercial building. It dates back to 1872, when it first opened in 1872.

At ground-floor level, there are limestone ashlar Corinthian pilasters that bring a delightful touch to the limestone ashlar shopfront arcade.

The limestone ashlar shopfront to both elevations forms a seven-bay arcade of elliptical arches with profiled soffit and reveals, glazed with fixed timber-framed display windows on a profiled limestone plinth course.

The arched blind corner wraps around the side elevation. There is a small recessed medallion to each spandrel. The dentil enriched shopfront cornice that also acts as the first-floor sill course.

The round-arched window openings at the first-floor level form arcades of two and three (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Superimposed rusticated stucco Corinthian pilasters rise from the sill course at the first-floor and second-floor levels, where there are two paired end bays and three bays to the centre.

At the second-floor level, you can see a supporting limestone ashlar dentil and an enriched parapet entablature.

The round-arched window openings at the first-floor level form arcades of two and three, each with polished granite outer pilasters and an inner three-quarter engaged column joined by elaborate running mould stucco archivolts with panelled soffits and vermiculated keystones.

The balcony balustrades enclose recessed glazed elevations, dating from around 1990. There are square-headed window openings at the second-floor level with shared limestone sills, and a stucco architrave with rounded corners.

The recessed glazed elevation inside is illuminated by these unglazed window openings.

A flat roof to the recessed top floor was added during the renovations in the early1990s.

The building was almost entirely rebuilt inside around 1990, and is now in use as apartments on the upper floors, while the ground floor continues to be used as retail shops, and retains much of the original street façades.

Part of the building is now known as Ormston House, a cultural resource centre in the heart of Limerick. Ormston House opened in 2011 to support creative practices and to provide the opportunity to develop challenging and experimental work.

Through a programme of exhibitions, events and residencies, Ormston House offers a physical and intellectual space to encourage active participation in the arts. Ormston House strives to grow audiences for contemporary art and to build an international network for cultural exchange and engagement.

Despite the recent renovations and large-scale alterations, this building and its façade retain the original architectural significance and it continues to occupy a prominent place in the streetscape of Limerick.

Saint Brendan the Voyager … a new icon by Aidan Hart commemorates the saint whose feast day is celebrated today

Patrick Comerford

Saint Brendan’s feast day is celebrated today [16 May]. I am in the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of parishes less than four months, and I regret that I have not organised something liturgically appropriate and special today to mark Saint Brendan’s Day.

Saint Brendan’s feast day is celebrated on 16 May and in Ireland he is the patron saint of sailors, boatmen, mariners, travellers, elderly adventurers, and of the dioceses of Ardfert and Clonfert.

Saint Brendan is the patron saint of Saint Brendan’s Church in Kilnaughtin, Tarbert, Co Kerry, but is also the patron saint of Saint Brendan’s Cathedral, Clonfert, Co Galway, one of the three cathedrals of which I am the precentor – the other two are Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare.

Another cathedral in the diocese was also named after him, but Saint Brendan’s Cathedral in Ardfert, Co Kerry, was destroyed by fire almost 400 years ago in 1641.

Saint Brendan of Kerry, or Saint Brendan of Clonfert, is also known as Brendan moccu Altae, Brendan the Navigator, Brendan the Voyager, and Brendan the Anchorite. He is known for his legendary journey to the Isle of the Blessed, narrated in The Voyage of Saint Brendan, and is described as one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland.’

However, many of the details of Saint Brendan’s life come to us from myth and legend in the Irish annals and genealogies rather than having reliable historical evidence.

He is first mentioned in Adamnan’s Vita Sancti Columbae, written sometime between 679 and 704. The first reference to him as a seafarer appears later in the ninth century in the Martyrology of Tallaght.

The several Latin and Irish versions of the Life of Brendan and the Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot (Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis) date from the end of the 12th century, although earlier versions may have been composed around the year 1000. This makes it difficult to reconstruct details of the life of the real Brendan or to understand the nature of the Brendan legends.

Saint Brendan setting out on his voyage … a sculpture in the square in Bantry, Co Cork, unveiled by Brendan Howling when he was a cabinet minister (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

It is said that Saint Brendan was born in Tralee, Co Kerry, in 484 and was baptised at Tubrid, near Ardfert, by Saint Erc, and that he was later tutored by Saint Finnian of Clonard.

At the age of 26, Brendan was ordained priest by Saint Erc, and he later founded a number of monasteries. His first voyage took him to the Arran Islands, and he also visited Iona, where he is said to have met Saint Columcille or Columba. His travels also brought him to Wales and Brittany, on the northern coast of France.

But Saint Brendan is best known for a legendary journey with 16 pilgrims to the Isle of the Blessed, supposedly in search of the Garden of Eden. This group fasted for 40 days before embarking in the name of the Trinity, and their voyages created one of the most remarkable and enduring European legends.

Over the years there have been many interpretations of the possible geographical location of Saint Brendan’s Island, from places in the southern part of Ireland, to the Canary Islands, the Faroes or the Azores, and Madeira, or even the Americas. It is difficult to tell what is factual and what is folklore, but it is a story of salvation, monastic obedience, pilgrimage.

The Navigatio was known widely throughout mediaeval Europe. Some maps in the time of Christopher Columbus included an island called Saint Brendan’s Isle in the western Atlantic Ocean. But there was never any reliable evidence that Saint Brendan ever reached Greenland or America.

The ruins of Saint Brendan’s ... probably the site of the early monastic settlement in Birr, Co Offaly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It is said that after his voyages and after establishing a bishop’s see at Ardfert, Saint Brendan founded a monastery at Annaghdown, where he lived the rest of his life.

Among the many churches associated with Saint Brendan, the name of the Church of Ireland parish church in Birr, Co Offaly, continues the name of a monastery founded nearby on the banks of the River Camco, in the 6th century AD. An important work from this monastery is the illuminated text known as the Macregol Gospels or the Book of Birr, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

In the late 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis referred to the Birr Stone as umbilicus Hiberniae or the navel of Ireland.

Saint Brendan is also said to have founded the church and monastery in Clonfert, Co Galway, around 557. He died ca 577 at Annaghdown, Co Galway, and he arranged before his death to have his body carried back to his monastery at Clonfert, where he is buried at Saint Brendan’s Cathedral.

Saint Brendan’s Cathedral, Clonfert, is one of four cathedrals still open in the United Dioceses of Limerick and Killaloe, and the monastic site predates the stories of the saint’s voyages. Clonfert became one of the foremost monastic schools in Ireland and the inspiration for many great missionary ventures across Europe.

The monastery was burned in 1016, 1164, and again in 1179, but in its heyday Clonfert may have had 3,000 monks. The centuries-old Yew Walk, with its cross-shaped paths, looks like church transept with a green ceiling. Local lore says the monks walked under the trees in silence, reading their daily office. However, the Diocese of Clonfert was not organised until 1111 and the diocesan boundaries were not fixed until 1152.

The first stone cathedral here was built around 1167 by Bishop Petrus Ua Mórda, and the earliest part of the cathedral dates from this period. The West Doorway is the crowning glory of the cathedral and the greatest masterpiece of Hiberno-Romanesque work, and the cathedral is listed in the 2000 World Monuments Watch.

The doorway has eight orders of jambs, surmounted by seven orders of arches and crowned by a triangular pediment bordered by carved ropes. The triangular pointed hoods and decorations form a unique mediaeval gallery with a truly fabulous variety of motifs, including human faces, bizarre beasts, formalised flowers and interlacing geometrical shapes, representing the way all creation points to the Trinity.

The West Doorway of Clonfert Cathedral is the greatest Hiberno-Romanesque masterpiece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At Ardfert, the ruins of the ancient Cathedral of Saint Brendan, with its chantries and chapels, form a complete reliquary of Irish ecclesiastical architecture, in its different orders and ages, from the seventh or eighth century to mediaeval Gothic. The cathedral was finally dismantled in 1641.

So, from the south-west of this diocese in many parts of Kerry, to the centre around Birr and the north-east at Clonfert, Saint Brendan is associated with many of the churches, cathedrals and early ecclesiastical centres.

It might be a good idea to organise something appropriate on Saint Brendan’s Day, 16 May, in Kilnaughtin next year, and it seems there is potential for a Saint Brendan’s Way or pilgrim-tourist trail through the diocese, from Ardfert, Tralee or Killarney, through Tarbert, to Birr and on to Clonfert.